Author: Umesh Katkar

In this tutorial, we will see how to cause a text to follow a desired path. We always see texts displayed in a round shape or in the shape of waves. Often we see round rubber stamps or various logos designed in rounded text. To give a desired shape to the text, most of the times, Corel draw or Illustrator is used as a tool of choice. But what about photoshop? Here’s how you do it !

First draw the path of your choice. Select the pen tool(P) to create a path.

Now go to the options bar and select the settings as in the image below.

Draw a round shape on the layer.

Select the Type tool from the tool bar.

Now look at the text type cursor carefully. This is the regular cursor used for text.

Click closer to the rounded path and you can see the change in cursor. It means you can create text on the path.

After that click on the path and type the text as you want and get the result as below.

You can draw any type of shape using the pen tool. Below is an example of a curved line.

The background image can be removed by selecting the Magic Eraser Tool (E) from the tool bar. It can be selected by right clicking the eraser tool and choosing the third option.

Next, click on the background of your image. You will see that the similar, solid coloured area gets erased.

With multiple clicks, one can erase similar coloured areas. Although this may not be the perfect way to remove the background, as it works only when the background image has similar, solid colour shades.

We can now add our own image as the background by dragging a new image into the edited image.

The background image can then be freely moved to the desired position. Next, in the layer palette tab, drag the background image layer below the edited image layer as shown below.

The edited image can then be moved as desired.

Try it out yourself and let me know your feedback through your comments

You must have seen many animated .GIF images but had not idea on how to go about creating them. Here I am going to tell step by step how to go about creating an image with simple GIF animation.

In this tutorial we are going to use Blink Light Effect using Lens Flare Filter. As in the above image you can see it the original on the left hand side and make it look like the headlights were turned on.

Original Image

Lets first make a duplicate layer of the image. Right Click on the layer and you can see the Duplicate Layer option in the below palate. Or just Press Ctrl+J key. See the image below.

After duplicating the layer just go to Filter > Render > Lens Flare

Now we can see the Lens Flare palate box displayed on your screen.

Set the Lens Flare on the car’s headlight.

Set the Brightness value – 85%, keep on 105mm Prime. Click on “OK”.

Now repeat this step with the left side headlight.

Now we have created a light effect by using lends flare filter. Check the image below.

Now to add animation effect to it.

We have two layers. One is normal image and another is with the light effect.

Just go to Window > Animation. You can see Animation Frames Pallet display on your screen. (Check image below)

Here we see the frame 1 in the Animation Frames Pallet.

Now to create the duplicate of frame 1.

Just Click on this icon to Duplicate the frame.

Select the first frame and go to the Layer Pallet and then hide the layer. See the red highlighted box in the image

Now select the second frame and go to Layer Pallet

Keep the selection on the above image layer. (Check the image below)

We have two frames and now to set the time to display the frame.

Set the Time Value – 0.5sec. for both images. (Check the image below)

We can preview the Animation here. Just click the Play Button below the Frames Pallet.

Save the file in GIF Animated format.

Go to File > Save for Web & Devices (Alt+Shift_Ctrl+S). Click on it.

Save for Web & Devices is displayed on the screen.

Now select the GIF format here like shown in the image below. Select GIF and Save the file.

Resultant image

Hope you find this tutorial useful. If you know any easier methods or tips, do discuss them in your comments.

In this post we are going to see how to create Rain Effect with using Fibers and Motion Blur Filter. This tutorial will show you how to take one image like the one at the left and make it look like its raining as seen to the right.

The Original Image

Take a wallpaper image which has nature preferably.

Select Black and white color as a foreground and background color.

Create new layer above the nature image layer.

Now fill the foreground color to the blank new layer. Go to tool bar and select the Paint Bucket Tool (G).

Come on stage and fill the color on the layer. Click once in the blank area. Now we can see black color apply on the blank layer.

For this tutorial I have taken a cat’s photograph. We can see the watermark on it and to the right you can see the image after I removed the watermark.

First make a selection around the Watermark text. You can use Pen tool or Magic Wand tool for this. But here I have used both.

Now I create a selection around the watermarked text image as shown in the image below.

Now lets make some changes to the selected area.

Go to Edit>Fill (Shift+F5).

You can see Fill Pallet box display on your screen.

Here I have usedUse – Content-Aware, Mode-Normal, Opacity-100% as you can see in the image below.

Now Deselect the selection. Just Press Ctrl+D for de-selecting the selection. You can see watermarked area filled with the background color. Now I have to remove the outline of the watermarked text image.

For this we using the Clone Stamp Tool (S)

Then with the help the Clone Stamp Tool remove the Watermark text outline. Just pick the similar color of the outline near part by pressing Alt key and fill it on the outline (seem image below).

After removing the whole outline where of the remains of the watermarks outline we have the image ready.

Sometimes removing watermark is necessary when we need to use a particular image in a certain way. Watermarked images usually are copy-righted. In this case do give credit or take permission from the original copyright holder of the image specially if you are reproducing that image in any form commercially.

We can see a lot of websites that offer images online. Many of them have a company or photographer’s watermark on each image. In this post I have written about how to create an effective watermark on an image with Photoshop.

First take the image you want to have watermark. I have taken the image below as an example.

Now select the Type Tool from the tool bar and type the text you want as a watermark.

Now select the text layer and let’s give it some style. Here we give Bevel and Emboss effect to the text. Just go to layer palate and click on layer style option. See the below image.

After that you can see Layer Style pallet displayed on your screen. Keep your settings like I have in the image below. Just apply only Bevel and Emboss effect.

Now our text layer looks a bit like the image below.

Here we go for our watermark effect.

Keep selection on text layer and go to Layer Pallet.

Keep Opacity Value 50% and Fill Value 25% as you can see the below image.

Here we got our text added as a watermark to the image.

You can also use custom shape or a log as watermark. Just go to Custom Shape Tool and click on it.

When we select the Custom Shape in tool bar we can see Custom Shape option display on top bar.

As seen in the image below you can see many of Custom Shape in the palate. Just select the one which you like. Here I went with the target shape which has concentric circles.

Just draw the custom shape below the text layer.

Now apply the same style to Custom Shape which was we gave to text. Go from layer style or just right-click on the text layer and Copy Layer Style.

Now select the Shape layer and right-click on it. Then paste Layer Style.

Here we have our image with the watermark.

This is how I have used Photoshop to watermark an image. Ideally a good watermark is hardly noticeable yet does not take anything away from the image. Do drop in your comments with your views and alternative ideas about watermarks on images with Photoshop.

We have many options for various effects on an image with Photoshop. In this post I am going to tell you about how to apply a spotlight effect on an image.

Why use spotlight effect?

We can use spotlight effect for highlighting a part of the image. It is usually to show or draw attention to a particular part of the image. Sometimes spotlight effect can be used to complete give the image a different context. A good example is are the images below.

For this tutorial I have taken the example of the image below. This image is a little dark and I like to use darker images while using spotlight effect. This is because with spotlight a darker image seems to work better overall.

We are going to highlighted the face the girl in the image.

Select the image layer and go to Filter>Render>Lighting Effects.

After Lighting Effects box is displayed on your screen, keep the all value as per the image below. You can free to change these value as per the nature of the image.

Now you can see the face of the girl in the image is highlighted in comparison to the original image.

We can also change the spotlight color. This is used to create a different context to the image.

Go to Filter>Render>Lighting Effects and change the color. Just double-click on the color box and you can see the selected color box on your screen.

You are free to use any color for your Spotlight Effect. Here I use light Orange and Yellow color as you can see in the image below.

Below is how the image was after changing the spotlight color.

This does make the image a lot different from where we started. There are many creative ways to use spotlight effect with Photoshop. Do drop in your comments and views.

In this post we are going to see how to create a Grunge Border Effect to Solid Color Box with using filter. We can see so many of Border Styles in Photoshop. I thought I will write on how to create Grunge Border Effect in a few simple steps.

First create a new file in Photoshop. Give background color like below image.

Then draw the box on the new layer. Go to Toolbar and select the Rectangle Tool (U)

This way we have finished creating a box. Here I given it a Lemon Yellow color. (see image below)

After that give it stroke of a dark shade of yellow. Just go to Layer Pallet >Layer Style > Stroke.

As you click on stroke you can see Layer Style pallet on your screen. Now keep your Stroke setting as shown in image below. Keep stroke size-1px, Inside.

You can see the solid color border to the box.

Now let’s see how to convert it into Grunge Border Effect.

Just go to Filter >> Stylize >> Diffuse. Click OK.

Now you can see the Diffuse box displayed on your screen. Just select the Normal option and click Ok.

Here we get the Grunge Border Effect Box. We create this effect by usingthe Diffuse Filter.

Now for some more finishing touches.

I applied Outer Glow to the image. Go to Layer Style and select the Outer glow option and keep your setting similar to the image below.

Now we have the Grunge Border Effect to a Solid Color Box with Photoshop.

In this way you can give a Grunge Border effect to the Solid Box within a couple of minutes. Do you have any alternative steps or methods with Photoshop? Do drop in your comments.